The present invention relates to cotton pickers, and particularly to picker spindle assemblies included in cotton pickers.
The conventional cotton picker includes one or more (usually two) picker spindle assemblies each comprising a plurality of vertically-extending picker bars mounted to a pedestal flange via a bar pivot, each picker bar carrying a plurality of horizontally-extending spindle pickers. Each picker spindle assembly is rotated about its vertical axis so as to pass the horizontally-extending picker spindles through a moistening station wherein the picker spindles are moistened by a spindle moistener assembly, and then through a doffer station wherein the cotton is removed from the picker spindles by a doffer assembly.
Because of wear and tear, it is frequently necessary to adjust the vertical position of the spindle pickers with respect to the moistener and doffer assemblies. In the present construction of the picker spindle assembly, this is usually done by loosening the picker bars and their bar pivots, and adding one or more shims between the bar pivots and the pedestal flange. Such a procedure is time-consuming, unpleasant to perform, and requires the maintenance of different sized shims. Moreover, these drawbacks usually cause cotton pickers to experience a considerable down-time period for repair and adjustment purposes, which not only increases the expense of operation and maintenance of the cotton pickers, but also can cause considerable difficulty during the cotton-harvesting period by delaying the completion of the harvest and thereby subjecting the cotton crop to the risk of damage by early rainfall.
An object of the present invention is to provide a picker spindle assembly for cotton pickers having advantages in the above respects.